


The Last Picture Show

by ArtemisRae



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hopper is happy, Shenanigans, The Gangs All Here, but hes a good dad, but hes gonna do it his way, el has no real sense of shame anyway, hopper is going to be an embarrassing dad, hopper is overprotective about different things than el might assume, inverting the overprotective hopper trope, look as long as shes not as bad as he was, or actually, sorry kids, teenagers gonna teenage, the rating is mostly for swearing, waaaay less making out than one might assume from the premise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRae/pseuds/ArtemisRae
Summary: One thing I know for sure - a person can't sneeze in this town without somebody offerin' him a handkerchief...it's an awful small town for any kinda carryin' on...- The Last Picture ShowHopper catches Mike and El at the local drive in after being led to think that they were at the Hawk with their friends.





	The Last Picture Show

Hopper tapped his pen impatiently on the desk. He had deliberately picked up the Friday evening shift, knowing that El would be out and not at home, waiting for him, and had planned on using it as an opportunity to catch up on paperwork that he’d admittedly been slacking on. It was sorted into neat stacks based upon how passive aggressive Flo’s Post-It read: “ _take your time”, “need these yesterday”, “not that important”_.

He was working on the _“I will forge your signature”_ stack when Callahan came in.

“You up for a 10-10?” he asked, and Hopper, eager for any excuse to ignore paperwork, immediately pushed back from his desk and picked up his hat.

“Who’s fighting?” he asked, holding his hand out for the keys.

“Archie Foreman’s Mustang was spotted going up the exit ramp to the Sterling Drive-In,” Callahan said. 

“And let me guess.” They banged out into the parking lot. It was the end of September, and unseasonably warm. He hadn’t even bothered with a jacket or wool socks. “Jack Sanders’ Camaro is there too?”

“Right in front of the snack bar,” Callahan confirmed, and in synchronized motions they opened their car doors and stepped inside. He didn’t bother with the light - if they were just going to break up a fist fight, they probably didn’t even need two of them, but all the cops in town knew Archie Foreman, and if Archie had been drinking before heading out to the Sterling after Jack then they would need someone to sit on him just to get the cuffs on. He got wild when he drank.

Archie’d had his eye on Jack for a while - some beef over a woman, although it was hard to imagine the quality of woman who would find both Archie Foreman and Jack Sanders attractive. 

It normally took about a half-hour to reach the Sterling Drive-In - twenty minutes if one could skirt traffic rules the way Hopper and Callahan could. Like Archie, they too went up the exit ramp, gravel crunching under the wheels of the cruiser.

What they found was a scene of chaos - what had probably started as a regular old Friday night fist fight had devolved into a full out brawl. Archie had brought back up, and Sander’s brothers were with him.

Despite the group of men, the sloppy fight, and their drunken shouts and curses, the movie was still playing on the big screen. There were still some cars in the lot too, but not many - it was the second feature, and some kind of gross out horror movie too, so all the families would have left. Hopper could hear the sounds of the speakers getting louder and fading as they drove past the rows towards the back, where he could see the Mustang had blocked the Camaro into its spot. 

Foreman was arrested at least once a month. As soon as the high beams of the police cruisers hit them the brawl broke up - the Mustang was now blocked into the lane on either side by Hopper and Callahan, and so Archie’s friends scattered into the woods. Sanders’ brothers, with no one left to fight, fell back against the Camaro. One of them leaned into the backseat and opened a can of Budweiser. Archie and Jack were still struggling against each other.

“Seriously?” Hopper asked, gesturing to the beer, as they strode past the cars to the men still fighting.

He nodded and toasted Hopper, who merely rolled his eyes. In unison, he and Callahan both waded into the scrum. Hopper got a hand on the back of Archie’s jacket, while Callahan was picking up Sanders by his elbow.

Dimly, he heard Callahan reading Sanders his rights, and mechanically he started to do the same, pushing Archie onto the hood of the cruiser. Archie, having been read his rights innumerable times already, was still yelling threats at Jack as Hopper lifted him off the hood and started to push him towards the backseat of the car.

Then, he looked up, and saw the blue station wagon with the wood panelling. It was dumb luck that he saw it; it was parked two rows up and three over. There was nothing special about it, no vanity plates or bumper stickers, just a plain Ford taking in the double feature, but the second he saw that car he knew, _he knew_ -

“Son of a bitch!” he growled, and dropped Archie belly first onto the ground. “Ugh, sorry -”

Hopper dragged him up and threw him into the backseat, slamming the door with a stern, “ _Stay there_.”

“Chief? What are you -” he heard Callahan call after him and then, “Damn, I have to start over. You have the right…”

Hopper pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on. He heard someone heckle him, but he ignored them, having eyes only for the car ahead of him.

He approached from the front. The driver and passenger windows were rolled down, the speakers hanging inside, the movie blaring within the confined space of the car.

There was no one sitting in the front seats.

He found the car’s occupants stretched out in the back. They were… quite busy. The only light was from the movie, flashing over them, but there was no mistaking who it was even if he couldn’t make out their faces, and he also knew that they weren’t supposed to be in the Sterling Drive-In.

He tapped on the window with the end of his flashlight. It took a minute to get their attention - they really were very busy. He tried again, a little harder this time, enough to resonate within the car without risking breaking the window.

His patience was rewarded, however, as he finally got their attention and got to watch as Michael Wheeler’s face morphed from irritation to confusion to full blown panic.

***

His knee was digging into the door handle. 

Mike Wheeler sat in the front seat of the police cruiser and mentally made a list of all the times his life had done such a 180 before - like Will going missing, finding El in the woods, her dramatic return at the Byers’, even their kiss at the Snow Ball - but this was somehow… scarier. 

He thought it was because during all of those events there had been an action he could take, something he could do - he could look for Will, he could help El get settled, he could fight demodogs, they could dance. Right now there was nothing he could do but sit, crammed into a bench seat with his girlfriend and her father, and listen as they yelled over one another.

“You lied! You fucking lied to me!” Hopper was yelling. 

“You snuck up on us! How could you -”

“You are not listening! You told me you would be at the Hawk with your whole little fucking _party_ and I find you at the Sterling with _him_ -”

“I said we were going to the movies and we were at the movies -”

“You are sixteen! Fucking _sixteen_!”

“Why were you spying? Only assholes spy!”

“That is not the point, that is not the goddamn point, you lied -”

“That is what you said when -”

“ _And don’t ever call me an asshole again kid!_ ”

“ _You_ used that word -”

Between the yelling and the pounding of his heart, his ears were ringing. He had no idea someone else was in the car with them until he heard a quiet mutter from the backseat.

“You really dating Chief Hopper’s kid?” the man in the backseat asked.

“Yeah,” Mike answered distractedly. Under other circumstances he would have ignored him, but Hopper’s face was an alarming shade of red, and the lights on the dashboard were starting the flicker - no doubt the influence of El.

“You poor bastard.” Mike glared at him. He chuckled. “Can’t believe you got caught by the Chief going at it in the back of a station wagon. That’s a shit Friday.”

“You got _arrested_ ,” Mike pointed out.

“Yeah but he’s not _mad_ at me,” he pointed out reasonably. “Chief isn’t someone you want mad at you.”

“I’m not taking advice from a _criminal_ ,” Mike said, insulted. He didn’t think El and Hopper were hearing them at all. On top of their shouting, the radio was making an alarming squealing noise as El got more and more worked up.

“That wasn’t advice. Advice is, _don’t get caught fucking the chief’s daughter in the backseat of your car._ ”

“We weren’t fucking!” Mike yelped, alarmed. Christ, he hoped Hopper didn’t think they were having sex.

“Goddamn kid, it was the second feature! What were you waiting for?”

He was saved from having to come up with a reply when Hopper abruptly wheeled around and positively roared, “ _AND SHUT UP ARCHIE_.”

He turned to Mike, and shoved a finger in his face. Mike stared at it. It was shaking slightly. “You are driving her home. Right now. It takes exactly 27 minutes to reach my house from here. You have 32 minutes. El, if you’re not on that radio telling me you’re home in exactly 32 minutes, so help me -”

“What?” El asked, irritated and challenging. “You’ll do what?”

Mike didn’t want him to finish the threat. He grabbed El by the wrist and all but dragged her from the car. “Right yes, we’re leaving now. Right now.”

***

Hopper stewed the entire ride back to the station. 

She had lied to him. Little Miss _Friends Don’t Lie_ had lied, and by extension, her entire little party had too. And she’d had the nerve to act like _he’d_ done something wrong.

He was so angry that when he parked the cruiser, he didn’t go back into the station - instead he pulled out the truck keys and went to his Blazer.

“Uh, Chief?” He heard Callahan call cautiously. “What do you want me to do with them?”

“Throw Archie in the tank. No charges, he’ll be arrested again within the month.” There was so much wrong with what he was doing, starting with leaving Callahan alone with two perps, and yet.

 _They had lied to him_.

Hopper wasn’t an unreasonable man. He understood teenagers pushed their boundaries. He, as a teenager, had done a lot more than push. Driven through them with a bulldozer, more like.

He thought he was a fairly permissive parent - half the stuff he’d gotten into at sixteen hadn’t even occurred to El, who, despite being a living breathing medical experiment, still thought glitter nail polish was the height of technology. And if there was anyone he was going to trust with her, it was the Wheeler kid, who thought rose petals fell out of her ears when she walked. 

Wheeler had been doing right by El since he’d found her in the rain that night in November. There was no point in trying to protect her from him and his teenage hormones - hell, half the time Hopper thought that Mike more likely needed protection from El, who had brain powers and no sense of shame.

She needed to live as normal a life as possible. For him, that meant meeting all her friends but letting her go out anyway. Going to the high school open house, but sending her anyway. Wanting to punch every snot nosed piece of shit that called her weird, but letting Wheeler get detentions for doing it instead.

Healthy boundaries.

It looked like there were some boundaries he needed to reenforce. 

He pulled up at The Hawk. The lights were still on, so it looked like the late feature was still rolling - Hellraiser, the same gross out horror movie that had been playing at the drive-in. Sinclair’s Cavalier was parked under a street lamp, and so Hopper strode over, leaned against the trunk, lit a cigarette, and waited.

He was distracted from his vigil exactly once, when El radioed the code for H-O-M-E with exactly one minute to spare. Considering his response, he finally went with G-O-O-D, but was unsure whether or not she’d left the radio on while she was pouting.

Three cigarettes later the movie let out, and Hopper watched as the small crowd of people - mostly teenagers, the only people who bothered to go to the late weekend features at The Hawk - trickled out of the theater. 

El’s party was near the back of the group, talking animatedly. He sized them up.

Will as always, was near the front of the pack, but off to the side. Hopper wondered if the kids even realized that they tended to walk behind him, as if they were always keeping an eye on him.

Immediately he ruled out Will. Will would be frank, and honest, and no fun at all. Plus, he’d literally breathed life into the kid.

Lucas, swinging his car keys around his index finger, was the only one in the pack to have been gifted his own car, giving him a significant edge in the social hierarchy. He was holding Max’s hand, swinging slightly with their gait. He was a straight talker, the best liar of the bunch, but he also knew when to cut and run. 

No good for Hopper’s purpose.

Max, her stringy hair blocking her face from view. She and Dustin were exclaiming over the special effects of the movie - sounded like a bloody one. Also ruled out. She’d tell Hopper right to his face to go to hell. 

Hopper thought she was a good influence on El.

He focused on the last one - Dustin, who, in the middle of shouting his point and making sweeping arm gestures, was the only one who hadn’t yet noticed Hopper was waiting. In fact, he didn’t notice Hopper even after everyone else stopped short. He bumped into Lucas from behind, declaring in an annoyed tone, “What the hell guys?”

Dustin. Dustin was his mark. 

“Hey Chief,” Will greeted him easily, and Hopper felt a surge of affection through his annoyance. Will knew they were caught, and didn’t look half as nervous as the others did. 

“Hey kids.” He took a drag of his cigarette, flicked ashes into the night. “It's a late one, isn't it?”

No one really had a response to that. Hopper waited expectantly for one of them to break the silence. Finally - he counted to five - just as he expected, it was Dustin who took the lead. 

“So Chief we, uh, weren’t expecting you to swing by. Did you… want to watch Hellraiser? Because it wasn’t that good.”

Max snorted, and then immediately ducked her face behind Lucas’s shoulder, not wanting to draw Hopper’s attention. He stayed focused on Dustin. 

“I thought I’d do you a favor and pick up El from the movie. You don’t all really fit in the Cavalier, and my house is way further out than anyone else’s.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Lucas said, talking a smidge too quickly to pass for playing it cool. “I don’t mind dropping her off -”

“I don’t see her though,” Hopper said, brows creasing in confusion. He tilted his head, the motion a little exaggerated, judging by the smirk on Will’s face. He pretended to search over their heads. “Or Mike. Where are they?”

“They’re still in the theater!” Dustin blurted out, and Hopper did not miss the dirty look that Lucas shot him. “They’re just… taking a moment. To themselves. They’ll be out in a minute, and we can drop El off, we don’t mind.”

As soon as he said these words, the marquee to the Hawk winked off, leaving them with only the street lamp and Hopper’s cigarette for light.

He straightened up. “Looks like they’re locked in for the night. Come on, I guess we’re going to have to go knock on the door and get the owner to let them out.”

“Wait!” Dustin shouted, scrambling. Will was shaking his head at this point, and Max had stepped all the way behind Lucas, as if Hopper wasn’t going to see her. “I mean, they’re not in there anymore.”

Hopper looked at him. He kept his tone serious and concerned. “But they were in the movie, right?”

“Yes! I mean!” He hugged his bag of popcorn, glanced around him as if looking for help, and then picked up, “Sometimes they sit somewhere else. Like we’ll sit up front and they’ll sit in the back.”

“Why would they do that?” Hopper asked, feigning confusion. Like he didn’t already know that the back row was goddamn _makeout city_.

The look on Dustin’s face indicated that he knew the answer to that question - and more than that, he knew that _Hopper_ knew the answer to that question. He tried to bail, looking around uncertainly for help. “Guys?”

“Look, if they weren’t with you guys, I have to phone it in,” Hopper interrupted, and if he didn’t know better he would have felt bad at the look of panic that crossed all their faces. They weren’t panicking about their missing friends, they were panicking because their little lie was falling apart. “We’ll have to get a search party going, the first 24 hours are crucial in something like this.”

He strode towards the truck, opening the door and reaching against the bench seat, looking for all the world a concerned father about to radio the station and then - 

“Wait, wait!” It was Max, having finally gained the courage to step in front of Lucas and elbow Dustin out of the way. “Chief, we know where they are. They went to a different movie.”

Hopper wheeled around, leaned against the truck, and took in each one of their faces. Will, too quiet, but obviously amused at the situation. Lucas, who was still holding the hand with his car keys up, as though if he just held still enough, Hopper wouldn’t throttle him. Dustin, cheeks bright red, holding his bag of popcorn from the movie so tightly there would be nothing but crumbs left. Finally, Max, eyebrows low and annoyed, clearly ready for this farce to be over.

“I _know_ ,” he said, aggravated and patronizing. “I know exactly where they went. I almost impounded Wheeler’s car about an hour ago.”

He was met with four slack jawed stares, and Will, who still looked like he knew too much for his own good. Hopper climbed up into the truck, took a final drag of his cigarette, and flicked it off into the darkness. “And if I ever catch you lying for them again, I'll make sure you all have parking tickets until you’re ninety.” Nodding at Max, he added, “That includes your skateboard too, missy.”

The driver’s side window was open as he pulled away. Distantly, under the rumble of the truck’s engine, he heard Dustin, asking the real question:

“Is Mike alive?”

It was enough to make Hopper smile and congratulate himself on a job well done.

Now to deal with El.

***

The door was unlocked when Hopper got home, which was the first thing to set his teeth grinding. The house was dark, and the door to her bedroom was shut, which was an indication that she didn’t want to talk and probably had every intention of ignoring him for daring to interrupt her date.

He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and moved into the kitchen. She was sixteen, and had been interrupted with her boyfriend by her father. She was naturally frustrated with him, and while he had learned that it was best to let El stew, and not push her when she was emotional, the fact was they needed to have a serious conversation and he didn’t feel like it could wait.

The only sign that she wasn’t asleep was the squeal of the walkie-talkie from her bedroom - probably talking to Wheeler, moaning about their failed date. If Sinclair had gotten the rest of their little party back to their respective houses maybe they were having a party line, talking in hushed whispers about Hopper cornering them at the Hawk.

Giving her space for the time being, he heated up a pan full of milk, stirring in the chocolate and getting the mugs ready before adding his secret weapon: a load of marshmallows, packing the mug so full that the hot chocolate would have to seep in around them. As he was holding the pan over the mugs, he finally called out:

“El! Come out here.”

There was a long moment of silence - Hopper’s heart skipped a beat, he really didn’t want to force this - and then he heard the hissing clunk that could only be El retracting the antenna on her walkie-talkie. The door creaked as it opened and she came to stand in the entrance to the kitchen, looking solemn.

She was still wearing the dress she’d left the house in, but she’d put on a pair of pajama pants underneath. The electric yellow print clashed with the grass green dress, and if he weren’t so goddamned irritated with her he would have thought she looked adorable with her mussed hair and little kid pout.

He held up the mug of hot chocolate. “Do you want to tell me why you lied tonight?”

The pout deepened. Accusing El of lying was an affront to her personal moral code. “We did not _lie_. I said we were going to the movies, and we went to the movies.”

Right. This was the crux of the issue. “El, go to the bookshelf and get your dictionary.”

For a moment she set her jaw, looked at him mutinously, but then conceded, turning tail and grabbing the book. He gestured for her to sit, pushing one of the mugs of hot chocolate across the table.

“Look up the word omission and read it out to me.” 

She was going to high school like a normal teenager, but there were still these little things, these gaps in her knowledge. Lying was something she generally didn’t do (and frankly wasn’t good at) but telling half truths, and letting him fill in the rest - did she really not understand why that was a problem?

“Omission,” El read out to him mechanically. “Noun. Someone or something that has been left out or excluded. Example: "there are glaring omissions in the report".”

“A lie of omission,” Hopper explained, “is you telling me that you’re going to a movie with your friends, knowing that I’m going to believe you’re at the Hawk with your entire party. You didn’t tell a lie, but you deliberately left out information. I need to know where you’re at when you go out, do you understand that?”

She gave a half shrug, one shoulder rising and falling, and Hopper exhaled roughly, tamping down the urge to snap at her.

“I’m not trying to spy on you,” he told her, an edge to his voice. “But if there had been an emergency, or if you got in trouble or I needed to find you, I wouldn’t have known where to start looking.”

 _Healthy boundaries_ , his brain reminded him.

 _Normal teenager_ , his heart reminded him.

How could he explain to her that it wasn’t just a courtesy to him, as her father? That he still had nightmares about meeting rooms in Washington D.C. where men in suits were shouting _“What do you mean the Hawkins Initiative is shut down? Three years?! Where is the subject?_ ”

He’d been in the Army. He knew how bureaucracy worked. It wasn’t just that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing - it was that the right hand was pushing half-finished paperwork towards the left hand and not reading anything the left hand gave back, just trusting the left hand to be doing what it was told.

It was his darkest nightmare that the closing of Hawkins Lab wasn’t really the end of the story, that at some point someone with some actual sway in the government was going to realize that they’d lost track of valuable assets - and do everything they could to track them ( _her_ ) down.

A normal teenager was not a paranoid teenager, but all the same - 

“Now, you realize that’s only part of the problem,” Hopper said to her, and judging by her downcast eyes he thought he was reaching her. “Because what worries me is that I not only didn’t know where you were, _you_ didn’t really seem to know where you were?”

She tentatively met his eyes then, her face a question mark. It had been a lot of work, encouraging her to use words, be a participant in conversations, and he knew when she was scared or stressed all that work meant nothing and she just withdrew into herself. It had been just as much of a learning curve for him to learn what all of her facial expressions meant, what she was asking for without saying it out loud.

“You said I was spying on you,” Hopper said, tone still stern. “But I wasn’t. If you had been paying attention to your surroundings you would have seen the police lights when me and Callahan got to the Sterling.”

Now a blush colored her cheeks. Hopper reminded himself again that he wanted her to be smart, not paranoid.

“Look.” His fingers thrummed against the table as he looked for the right words. “You’re a smart kid. God knows I got into shit when I was your age.”

El’s eyes lit up. “What kind of shit?”

Shit that had involved girls, and cars, and cigarettes, and alcohol. _My mom thought I was on the debate team_. Once he’d had to give a cop his entire case of beer in exchange for not giving him a ride of shame back to his house, and his poor naive mother. A different cop had once given chase after (an underage) Hopper had threatened a bartender with a wrench, vaulting over fences and under laundry lines for what felt like a mile before he was able to get away. Another time he’d learned a very hard lesson on what not to say to a girl when you found your condom had broken. The flip side of that lesson had been the one on not believing women who say _it's okay, I’m on the pill_.

He had so many pearls of fatherly wisdom to pass on to El, but _don’t stick your dick in crazy_ wasn’t one of them. 

_Be aware of your surroundings_ was, however.

 _When the cops show up, the date is over_ was too.

“That’s not fair,” Hopper finally said, raising his mug to his lips. “I had to figure it out on my own. You do too. We can compare notes when you’re older.”

El considered this. “Am I grounded?”

“I think that’s appropriate,” Hopper considered, then added, “If you can tell me why you lied I might be talked into cutting it short.”

“I didn’t think you’d let me go if I asked,” she said frankly. Hopper slapped a hand to his forehead. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting.

He sighed. “That doesn’t mean you manipulate me to get what you want, kid. You’re grounded for a week, for not being aware of your surroundings. That means no after school homework tutoring with Mike, no dates or campaigns next weekend, and I’m riding you to school this week, not him.”

She bit his lip but appeared to accept his terms. “So you’re not mad about the kissing?”

“Right.” He tried not to think of her and Wheeler grappling in the back of that station wagon. What he did think about was a jet black 1950 Impala, and Jeannie Rogers - although she was Matthews now, wasn’t she? 

“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Hopper gestured vaguely towards her neck, where a dark mark was visible under her ear. “You are the _worst_ at covering hickies. You _really_ need to talk to someone who knows about makeup. Try Nancy.”

That should be awkward enough punishment for both her and Mike. Too bad Nancy had to get caught up in it, though El might actually learn something useful.

To her credit, El didn’t look ashamed or embarrassed. “Okay,” she agreed easily.

“Good. Now go to bed.” He needed a drink, and didn’t like to open the bottle in front of the kid. “And no more walkie talkie tonight, got it?”

***

It was a month before Mike and El got to go on another date. Hopper was home that Friday evening when Mike came to pick her up, and the atmosphere was deliciously awkward. Hopper sent El back to her room to search for a jacket, as the weather had turned, and he was alone with Mike on the front porch.

“Tell me again,” he ordered Mike, who apparently thought staring at the wall over his shoulder would pass for eye contact.

“We’re going to the Harvest Festival,” Mike recited mechanically.

“Right” Hopper confirmed. 

“There’s a corn maze there.”

“There is.”

“And a hay ride.”

Hopper nodded. 

“Then we’re going to the diner with the entire party.”

“The _entire_ party?”

“Lucas, Max, Dustin, and Will.”

“Callahan patrols tonight and usually takes a coffee break there around 10,” Hopper observed.

“He will see us there?” Mike asked meekly.

“I bet he will.” Hopper lit a cigarette. “And Wheeler?”

“Yes?”

“If you ever lie to me again, I will tell you, in absolute, excruciating detail, what I did to your English teacher when I was sixteen.” He exhaled a plume of smoke, watching as it caught the icy breeze.

“ _Mrs. Matthews?!_ ” Mike asked, and El came out then and took his arm, and completely missed the mortified look on his face.

“Goodnight!” El called over her shoulder, like Hopper wasn’t going to wait up for them. Mike was still looking back at him, and Hopper found something deeply satisfying in the awed, intimidated look on his face.

He smirked, waved cheerfully, and shut the door.

_Healthy boundaries._


End file.
